Yes sir. The plan is to do it over the winter at the same time as the sphericals. Subaru Richard is going to help me with the shimming and all that.

Haha, I'm glad you enjoyed the Stealth! It's an unique car, and I also prefer the look of a lower Stealth with wheels over a VR4. I felt a bit of the spark reigniting after your comments and that small canyon blast, so thanks for that. These cars have loads of grip with that VLSD, AWD and the weight of the moon on the tires. I want to see how it feels once I get the suspension and alignment figured out. At least back in the day most people drag raced them which is a shame given how high their cornering abilities are, and how fragile the transfer cases are in a launch. I wanted to build it into a track car back in the day until I rode in a Miata with Hoosiers and was immediately convinced MIATA is indeed the answer.

 

Damn Ricardo, with all that high praise of the Stealth, I'm almost suspect that you paid Nate for his post Sounds like a ton of fun.

Excited to hear your thoughts on the OSG when it goes in, especially with the SM tune! That upgrade is high on my list as well.

 

haha his post does sound like I paid for it .

Will do. I would appreciate any tips or gotchas for the diff swap. I got research to do and I understand I got seals, bearings and shims to check/replace.

 

Saturday was Motorland Fest Round 7. During the week I did a brake bleed on the car, fixed the fender liner in the driver side (broke off at FM Summer Camp), installed front and rear tow hooks, did a bolt check and replaced the exhaust hangers. Nothing wild but good peace of mind. I saw some oil on the garage floor, under the trans, but didnt' see any further oil on the trailer or at the pits during the event, so I wonder if it's just some residue from the oil change. Hopefully not the rear main seal.


Put the car back on the scales to check the balance again with half a tank and my thiccness. Minimum weight is 2376lbs @ 132whp





On the first session I went out with a passenger. The car felt good and did consistent 1:33.xx . I decided to only drop the tire pressures a couple of psi and leave the suspension and sway bars alone. I've been running the Xidas at 12/11 (from full soft) with both sway bars full soft, which seems to control the car well, but allows a decent amount of body roll. The balance is great like this. At Suika I'm only having inside wheel spin coming out of the first hair pin when the track changes camber. With a stiffer rear bar or stiffer rear shock setting I get rear spin in other areas too. Checked the oil level after the session and the engine seems to have consumed 1/4 of a quart of oil since the oil change, which is great. Some of it may even be in the catch can. Not complaining but topped it off.

Second session, no passenger, it was feeling really good. I found myself grabbing fourth gear into T2 and gaining 1mph, where before it would slow down. Then dropping to second at T3, letting the car drift a bit on the way out of T4. Similarly in the second double apex, T11/12, I got a little braver and let it slide some more mid corner. In the first two laps I missed third gear in a spot, then understeered and oversteered in T11/12, but still managed a 1:32.4x with those mistakes. Took a deep breath and kept it together in the third lap.





1:31.60.... SHIIIIIII. Well, that's flipping insane. Finished the session shaking on adrenaline and with sore arms. 2 seconds faster than second place in my class but most importantly, I enjoyed these laps. The car was doing what I told it to and there is still much to learn.







Unfortunately the mood shifted after the second session when the 370Z NISMO I drove last time had a wheel sheer off the studs and flipped over. The driver made it out safe and sound with only one bruise from the seat belt. The car not so well. Really a wake up call for all of us there, and everyone was checking their lugnuts and hubs after that. I went back to the track after dropping him off at the hospital and did one more session at 9/10 to shake off the fear. CHUBs are going on before the next event.


Corvette and Camaro through turn 1


Lotus through turn 1

 

Jesus dude way to go. 1:30's definitely incoming! They are gonna kick you out of D class at this rate

And WTF about the z flipping, I hadn't heard about that!?!? Must be the first rollover I've heard of at time attack. Crazy, glad the guy is alright.

 

Good numbers, GOOD NUMBERS! Sick time man, glad to hear you're continuing to improve and the car is cooperating with you. Also I didn't realize how close you've got the car to your min weight/max power limits. I love seeing a car optimized for its class haha.

Seconded about the hubs going on before next event. I had some random expenses come up (left my tuning laptop on my wing last week and sent it flying into the street. Oops.) and was gonna postpone my Chub purchase until after my next track day. I'm rethinking that now. Better safe than sorry. Glad your homie with the Z wasn't more hurt.

At T4, is your exit to the middle-ish of the track intentional? Looks like you can enter T5 pretty tight and still have plenty of room at the exit. Sections like that still throw me for a loop sometimes. Finding a happy medium between finishing your turn early or opening up the wheel and carrying more exit speed is hard haha.

 

Thanks man. And I hope not! But next year I shouldn't be in D class anyways . People are getting very fast at Suika lately. Jon is down to a 1:33.7 in D class improving every event, Pablo did a 1:30.6 in the C class BRZ, and Tom a 1:30.2 with the ND2 (went to B class). Dylan keeps up the B class record with his 1:28.2...insane for a C5 with tires. And @hentia.jp with the consistent 1:26s in his Turbo 1.6. Yo, @hentia.jp, give us a build thread!

Thanks Zak. Honestly the min/maxing has been a happy little accident. It made the power it was going to make, and my mild weight savings happened to leave it there too. Not complaining though!

Sorry to hear about your laptop, dang. But yeah, not worth taking chances on these things.

Yep, that's intentional, and I'm also still trying to figure out that balance. I used to go further left, but without power and these Nankangs I've been closing that gap little by little. That middle line is what Spec Miatas do on RT660s, and I've been copying it. At this point any tighter into T5 and the car starts to slide. I'm not comfortable intentionally catching slides next to a wall so I'm still slowly inching towards the limits. For all I know the car/tires may even have more grip there than I feel, but I'm certainly at my limit.

All of that said, I don't have good A to B comparisons in the Garmin because I keep changing variables every time. The last few 1:32s I had been doing were by holding third gear in that complex, and this past event I was grabbing second, then upshifting mid complex.

 

That T4 > T5 transition gets me too. I had a spec miata driver tell me I should push harder through T4 (and end up further right) instead of coming out in the middle to setup for T5. But he's also never driven a 250+whp miata, so I disagree with him. In Ricardo's case he might be able to get away with what you are saying.

 

Started installing the CHUBs this weekend. The fronts were straight forward, but I had some fumbles pressing the rears.



First I went to press out the bearing and forgot about the snap ring. Put enough pressure on it that I couldn't remove it with pliers. Ended up using the press to relieve the pressure and that did the trick. No damage from this fumble, other than destroying the old bearing enough that it couldn't be pressed out because only the outer casing remained in the hub. Luckily my friend has a lathe and he turned down a puck that fit just through the hub while grabbing the divider of the two races of the bearing and we were able to press it out like that.

Pressed the new bearing in, and the second fumbled came when I pressed the hub onto the bearing without supporting the inner race and destroyed it. Very carefully pressed the new hub out of the now destroyed bearing and have this:





We don't know how to carefully remove that inner race from the hub yet. Cutting seems risky but might be the only choice since our bearing pullers don't grab onto the face of the bearing. Open to any ideas if you have them.

So with that I pressed the other bearing and hub in and that went well with proper support. A new bearing should arrive on Thursday and hopefully will have the car back on the road that weekend for a shakedown.

Here are a couple of pictures of the car at the last event:

 

Cut that inner race off dude. All day long better than trying to get it off any other way (imo). You will do more damage trying to get it off than you ever will cutting it. Even if you nick the hub it's a non-issue, but here's a trick so you don't even nick the hub:

Dremel 7/8th of the way through the inner race so there's a good groove. Don't try and go all the way through. Get a nice flathead or chisel, put it in that groove and give it a good smack. The hardened inner race metal is super hard but brittle, it will snap when you impact it and you can slide it right off. This is how I do them every time, never an issue. If it doesn't split with a good smack go back with the dremel and go a little further. You shouldn't have to dremel all the way thru the race and risk nicking the hub, it will eventually just snap with the chisel and come right off.

 

It’s called a bearing splitter. Two giant jaws with basically sharpened edges. Put it in that small groove, tighten it, and press it out.

 

Thank you both for those suggestions. I’ll see if I can source a bearing separator locally first because that’ll make me feel better. Hopefully no more fumbles!

 

Went ahead and bought a bearing separator from Harbor Freight and it was awesome.


The tower of un-fuckery


Fantastic tool

The new SKF bearing just arrived. Going to press it in tomorrow. There is a small quirk I’m curious about. This new bearing says Made in China and is a different box from the one I broke. Has anyone encountered any issues between different manufacturing plants for the SKF bearings?

 

My car just let me know that it wants new bearings, so I'll have to dig back through and learn from your mistakes.

No input on the bearings though, I just grabbed whatever SuperMiata supplies.

Did you install the fronts with ABS rings? I assume there aren't any issues installing those on a non-abs car?

 

It has been a straightforward job so far with the right tools, except for my fumbles. I watched a couple of videos on YouTube that really helped. Get new everything if you have time, Rear hub seals and axle nuts.

Let me know if you have any specific questions. You could use the old bearing inner race to support the new bearing if you don’t have anything else of the right size.

Yeah I left the ABS rings on. They’re a bit wobbly, but I’m going to let them be because I don’t have ABS and don’t want to take the hubs off again. SuperMiata says there is no issue running these on a non-ABS car.

 

Perfect. I got new rear axle nuts recently so I'll probably reuse those when I get around to doing the job. The fronts should go on tomorrow assuming they show up in time.

I'm going to leave the rears for later since mine seem fine and they're more involved. I'm glad the ABS rings fit. I might try to get wheel speed sensors hooked up at some point, but that's a stretch goal for sure.

 

CHUBs are in. Pressing the last one went smoothly this time. Spent some time cleaning the arms and calipers and seems I’ll need new rear pads soonish.



Front CHUB


Rear CHUB

Will shake it down tomorrow to the car meet and maybe a mountain scoot. Really interested to see if the brake feel improves with these.


Asked Gemini to cartoonify the photo from the track and add a meatball behind the number. I like the way that looks! Might play with the colors some and see what I like more.

 

That cartoon render is sick!!

Have gemeni cut scooter out, replace helmet with cat head, and there's your new CCM logo!

 

Haha I like that! Is this what you had in mind?

 

Hahah yess, with the caffinated cat motorsports text somewhere on it. And I want one for my car!